


Nostalgic

by mystiri1



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angelcest, Community: fic_promptly, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-09
Updated: 2011-04-09
Packaged: 2017-10-17 19:31:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/180409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiri1/pseuds/mystiri1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Nostalgia</b> <i>noun</i>, from the Greek nost(os) <i>a return home</i> + algos <i>ache/pain</i> <b>1.</b> a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgic

Gabriel still remembers what it was like before it all went wrong, remembers when it was the four of them: Michael, Sammael, Raphael and, of course, himself. Four archangels, four brothers, in the Heaven that existed long before humanity, a place very different from that in which the humans' departed souls resided. There had been others, but it was always those three that Gabriel had thought of as his brothers, at least in the sense that the Winchesters understood the term.

Michael was the sensible, responsible elder brother, doing his best to carry out their Father's wishes and to keep a rein on his younger siblings. That hadn't always been easy, as Gabriel figured both he and Sammael both suffered from so-called 'middle child syndrome'. Gabriel managed it by being the joker, the one that coaxed smiles and laughs out of his brothers, and Sammael by... Well, by being himself. He'd been called Lucifer long before he fell, and it hadn't been a pejorative, then. It was simply who he was: bright, shining, loved by all who knew him. Gabriel had known there was no way he could compete with that and he hadn't really wanted to, because he'd loved Sammael as much as any of them. And Raphael, the youngest, a gentle healer with three older brothers all fierce in their defense of him. They'd cosseted him outrageously at times, and while Gabriel considered his older brothers fair game for teasing, he always went easy on Raphael and not only because of the threat of brotherly retribution. They loved each other, lived for each other, and for their Father.

Until it had all gone wrong. Until Father had created new children, and Lucifer had refused to follow orders, and Michael, ever the dutiful son, had cast him down.

It's strange, looking at it now, and wondering how differently it might have gone if only... If only. It's the Winchesters who make him see it, who make it all more clear to him, because yes, there are surface similarities between his brothers and the vessels meant to bear them. Dean, the older son who had always followed his father's orders, and Sam, the defiant younger son. But they are superficial, and the differences critical. It's true Sam is a bit of a golden boy, popular and successful for the brief time in which he lived in the so-called 'normal' world, but he'd spent just as much time as an unpopular misfit when he was a child. He's arrogant, but not that much. And Dean – they'd miscalculated there, badly. Yes, he was Sam's older brother, and yes, he'd always followed his father's orders, but Sammy was as much his child as his sibling. Gabriel can imagine Dean's indignant protests, the angry curses and insults that would follow it ever being said aloud – and really, he must point it out one of these days – but Dean is the only mother Sam's ever known.

And anybody knows, you don't get between a mother and her child. Or his, in this case.

The point is that there is nothing Dean loves more than Sam, and that's why Gabriel can see, more clearly than anything else, where Michael failed. Because even though they were created to love their Father above all else, Michael hadn't. He'd loved Sammael, Lucifer, their brother. He's heard the arguments that Lucifer makes, that he was cast down for loving their Father too much, but Gabriel thinks it wasn't that which really tipped the balance. It was Sammael's blindness to what was right in front of him, and the fact that he had taken his brothers' love – his _brother's_ love – for granted. He'd never seen Michael's love for what it was, certainly never imagined any circumstance under which he could lose it, lose him, and it had been guilt as much as duty that had led Michael to cast him down.

Gabriel still feels the occasional pang of guilt himself for what he put Sam through, but it's one of those things that make the difference. Yeah, things aren't always perfect between Dean and Sam now – Dean's still having trust issues, and Sam is frustrated and angry with it – but Sam knows just how far Dean will go for him, just what it is he could lose. What he's lost before. And Dean would still never consider, for a second, not protecting his beloved younger brother. He's certainly never going to kill him, no matter what destiny supposedly decrees.

So Gabriel signs on to Team Free Will, and gets to know another brother that he'd barely met and never given much thought. He tries not to think about those he knew before: Michael, left with the cold comfort of his duty and an emptiness he's never been able to fill; Lucifer, with his jealousy and bitterness and sense of betrayal; Raphael, left behind and forgotten, all kindness lost to nihilistic despair. He agrees to help take on the apocalypse, and sometimes he even acts like he thinks the four of them really could make a difference.

But most of all, Gabriel watches the Winchesters and tries not to wonder if, back then, he could have made a difference. Or if he and his own brothers were doomed from the start.


End file.
